This invention relates generally to generating a list of users for advertisement targeting, and more particularly to generating a list of users associated with an interest topic.
It is advantageous for advertisers to selectively target advertisements to a group of users who have an interest in a common topic. A user's access to a certain page typically represents the user's general interest in a topic related to the content of the webpage, and user access to pages associated with the interest topic are useful for advertisers who are looking to target users with an advertisement related to the interest topic.
However, not only is it difficult to identify which set of pages are associated with a given interest topic, but even if such pages are identified the user access data may be disproportionately represented by a small subset of advertising accounts. In an advertising system, an advertising account may be associated with a set of related pages, and a disproportionate number of users accessing pages associated with a single advertising account may not be useful for the owner of the advertising account. For example, two distinct pages that contain different brands of product lines may be owned by the same owner and thus, the pages may be associated with the same advertising account of the owner. A list of user access data mostly associated with the advertising account of the owner is not useful if the owner of the advertising account is primarily looking to target advertisements to users who are unaware of its products. Alternatively, another advertiser may not wish to advertise to a list of users associated with an interest if that list is predominantly derived from users accessing pages of a few content owners.